strengthening and weight cutting for a dummy

So I have a bout 5 weeks till my second mma fight. im dropping about 25lbs, of fat, to make light heavy, from heavy weight. I wanna keep my strength up, but am afraid to lifting weights since its a big cut. Is there any recommended strength routines to build/keep strength, without getting bulked up? I was thinking hard bag work and grappling, and maybe body weight exersizes, which could also double as conditioning?

2) im also gonna cut some water weight. Ive never done this before. I know to drink aton of water, cut out sodium...should about a week before my fight, I try to cut the water weight? to prepare my body to getting used to it? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Not sure if it's immediately useful to you, but browse the site, you may find more things on cutting.

Hit the rowing machine, run like a ************, eat less calories than your daily, go to saunas and swim like a fish.

To drop 25 pounds (20 I guess if you're gonna cut water before weigh in), you need to work like a ************, and you need to have started two weeks ago. Now that you're done reading this, tie a twinkie to a plunger, stick it on your forehead, and hop on a goddamn treadmill.

I'm going to preface this by saying I know next to nothing about weight cutting. If you have a coach (which you should if you have a fight) see what they advise. If they can't help, find a local wrestling team; they should be very experienced with it.

Presumably a larger person can cut much more weight in water, which is really what's going to happen in such a short time period. 25lbs of fat in 5 weeks borders on impossible if performance is also a consideration. It's also damn near impossible unless you're obese and just starting a diet and exercise regimen.

In a fat loss situation the ideal thing to do would be to lift heavy because that will preserve muscle strength while also possibly training the nervous system into producing more ability at the same movement pattern. Creating a huge caloric defecit by doing balls to the wall intervals, etc AND eating at a large defecit is going to make you feel like crap in these situations more times than not.

The idea of "bulking up" from lifting while in a caloric defecit is VERY hard to do unless you have never lifted before or if you're following very specific diet plans, which involve all sorts of food cycling, intermittent fasting... It's simply not going to happen unless you're in one of those groups.

In my opinion, which maybe I am wrong, but I think what you are trying to do is not physically possible. 25 pounds is too much to lose in 5 weeks while still keeping up your same level of strength. In my younger days when I used to fight competitively I tried to keep up my strength while losing 13 pounds and could not. I would suggest maybe working harder on your technique and speed and stamina in order to make up for loss of strength, as this is strategy I used and it worked out really well.

Your first focus should be on your diet. You should find out what your bodies caloric requirements are and then creating a deficit through a calculated diet. If you stick with this your able to burn your fat, but creating a massive deficit will affect your overall strength.

Secondly you need to focus your training on doing alot of fat burning exercises. Alot of cardio within the fatburning range is the way to go.

You shouldn't be lifting your max weights 5 weeks before the fight, you should instead be doing slightly lighter weights and steadily increasing the weights week by week to "peak" on the week that you are fighting. Your focus shouldn't be on surpassing the weight that you can already lift, it should be more on getting to the weights that you already can. You can't have a calorie deficit and put on muscle, that is almost impossible. It will also effect your overall energy levels which will mean that you will need to be careful not to overtrain your body, which can happen without a properly controlled training routine during your build up towards the fight.

If you do all this you might, just might be able to cut the weight without losing any strength but you can't do it without a lot of hard work, sacrifice and some goddamn propper planning. Hope this steers you in the right direction.

Thanks! I couldn't make the cut. I tried though. So im just stuck competing at heavy weight for a little longer. I was starting to get weak and just push it too far, which isn't good, so im gonna do it the slow and steady way. Thanks for the advice again!